How to Zoom the Camera on iPhone

Using the camera zoom feature on an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch running iOS 5+ is slightly different than in previous versions. Here is how to activate and use zoom:

• Open the Camera app or swipe up to access the lock screen camera
• Bring up the familiar zoom bar with a pinch gesture
• Use a outward spread gesture to zoom in, or use a pinch gesture to zoom out

Once the magnification bar is present you can also slide on the bar itself to zoom in and out, the same way it worked in prior versions of iOS.

Remember the iPhone cameras zoom feature is currently limited to digital zoom, this basically means that a standard photo is taken and then automatically cropped around the portion you zoomed into, mimicking a real zoom feature. This is a common practice on all digital cameras and smartphones, but the resulting zoomed in images are grainier than a zoomed out picture would be. That cropping and zooming ability is a task anyone could do themselves manually in iPhoto or another basic image editing app too, and for that reason it’s often better to ignore the digital zooming ability and just take a standard photo to later edit yourself.